Bama Football Gears Up for Saturday at Bryant-DennyThe University of Alabama football team continued its two-a-day workouts Friday with a pair of two-hour sessions, gearing up for Saturday's kicking scrimmage and full-gear workout at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Friday, August 16, 2002

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The University of Alabama football team continued its two-a-day workouts Friday with a pair of two-hour sessions, gearing up for Saturday's kicking scrimmage and full-gear workout at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

"We worked in shoulder pads and shorts this morning and I did not see any need in going in full gear tonight, since we will be in full pads for practices (Saturday)," Alabama head coach Dennis Franchione said.

"I wanted us to be fresh (Saturday), so that is why we went without the pads tonight. We covered a lot of stuff in practice today and got a good bit done even without pads. We worked on things that you don't spend a whole lot of time on, but things that you do have to cover."

Senior quarterback Tyler Watts, who was held out of the passing drills on Thursday, was back in action Friday. Redshirt freshman quarterback Brodie Croyle did not participate in the passing drills Friday and redshirt freshman Spencer Pennington will sit out Saturday. Coach Fran wanted all of his quarterbacks to have one day off to rest their throwing arm.

The Crimson Tide will hold a kicking scrimmage at 9:15 a.m. and follow up with a 90-minute, full-contact workout at 2:15 p.m. on Saturday. Both sessions will take place in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

The annual kicking scrimmage will include live kickoff, kickoff returns, punting and punt returns.

"The kicking scrimmage is not designed to find a kicker, but is more for protection, coverages, blocking and setting up returns. The purpose is to help us decide who our cover people, returners and blockers are going to be. This will probably be the only live kicking work that we will go through in a scrimmage-type setting until the first game. We will continue to work on each phase of the kicking game each day in practice."